vaulttecexec

[vaulttecexec]

me? Gone for a few weeks because it was simply too hot to do anything here? Yup.

[vaulttecexec]

I’ll be here to do things tomorrow. The easiest way to interact with me is through asks and memes. Xoxo, stay hydrated.

[vaulttecexec]

might mess around and put barb in the commonwealth to see what happens.

she draws the line at aliens, but ya know what, it’s the least she can do (getting abducted one time).

[vaulttecexec]

i can finally breathe without suffering, so it's safe to say i'm winning the battle.

[vaulttecexec]

My lungs haven’t taken me out yet. Limited brain cells but Dena was the winner during my impromptu summer pneumonia. I’ll be back to annoy you all with my nonsense soon.

[vaulttecexec]

— What's gotten into you? — A gin martini.

[vaulttecexec]

I have, somehow: that will only be a shock to me, managed to overdo it during a heatwave AND get sick. I am going to be taking it extra easy and chill on discord for a few days while my lungs decide if they’re abandoning me or not. I was not built for summers here and will be vacating as soon as possible. If you see anything from me, it just means I’m winning the battle.

[vaulttecexec]

i could've sworn all of my muses were monsters or monster fuckers, but no, lucy is the only one who is neither. i believe in her, but my track record says it's not going to last long.

[vaulttecexec]

A meme for muses who can't open up.

Change pronouns and wording to your heart's content to best fit your muse.

"Maybe you'll feel better if you talk about it."

"It's okay. You don't have to say."

"You don't trust me by now?"

"You can say anything to me, I won't judge you."

"Have you...thought about talking to a therapist?"

"Who told you not to talk about it?"

"I never know when you're being quiet because that's just how you are, or if there's something wrong."

"You don't owe me or anyone else an explanation. But..."

"Things are going to stay the same forever if you won't talk about it."

"I can see you struggling. Take your time. I'm listening."

"I'll be here when you're ready."

"You never talk about yourself."

"Acting the strong silent type all the time is a good way to wind up lonely and hurting."

"The squeaky wheel gets the oil, you know. If you need something, speak up."

"I can talk to them for you if you want."

"I'll vouch for you, it's fine."

"Yeah, I don't like talking feelings either. Wanna go break something instead?"

"Is it that you can't find the words, or was what happened to you just that big?"

"Hey, I didn't know that about you."

"You don't have to say it, it's written all over your face."

"Good thing I can read you like a book."

"Is that you, [Name]? I almost forgot what your voice sounded like."

"You're full of secrets."

[vaulttecexec]

@vezhave → ❝ so is that a ‘no’ to solving this with murder…? ❞ (accepting, if you can find it)

she does a double take, because she could've sworn she left him further back and told him to stay there. they really have to work on this. it isn't even the first time. not to mention, she has no actual clue why he's still tagging along like he owes her some debt. she saved his life, and what was the reward? a 6'4 shadow; one with an apparent murder streak.

"that's a little extreme. no. no murder." yeah, barb, because you feel like you've killed enough people in your life. he doesn't know that because she doesn't tell everyone her life story. just enough of it to paint a picture that she may not be the best person on the planet. "unless they get squirrely. if they do that, a little murder. or the threat of it? i haven't decided yet, but we're gonna try and keep this in the no murder category."

[vaulttecexec]

I want to try something out with you (you can tell me no and to fuck off if you want). I want to spotify on and pick a song I associate with ghoul/barb and write a starter for you from however that song makes me think/feel. AND THEN you reply with a song. I am going to make them a playlist based on the songs we use. ARE YOU IN?

i'm willing to try it, but i haven't made them a playlist, so it'll probably take me extra time to reply to it? if you're willing to (continue) be patient with me, i think it's a lovely idea.

[vaulttecexec]

&. 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

(  a  mix  of  angst,  fluff,  and  plot  focused  dialogue  prompts  in  the  form  of  questions.  feel  free  to  change  how  you  seem  fit.  )

❛ what are you listening to? ❜

❛ can’t sleep? ❜

❛ how did you get this scar? ❜

❛ are you sure this is a good idea? ❜

❛ do you mind if i sleep here tonight? ❜

❛ what are you doing out here by yourself? ❜

❛ are you wearing my shirt? ❜

❛ don’t you know what you mean to me? ❜

❛ will i see you again? ❜

❛ are you comfortable? ❜

❛ are you trying to get us in trouble? ❜

❛ do you enjoy playing with people’s hearts? ❜

❛ don’t we deserve to be happy? ❜

❛ why can’t i come with you? ❜

❛ are you here to kill me? ❜

❛ you think i’m jealous? ❜

❛ do you want to share this? ❜

❛ is that blood? is it yours? ❜

❛ how do you know my name? ❜

❛ you’re an asshole, you know that? ❜

❛ like what you see? ❜

❛ was that your first kiss? ❜

❛ are you happy here with me? ❜

❛ sorry, did you want to be alone? ❜

❛ do you want my jacket? ❜

❛ how are you still alive? ❜

❛ you’re beautiful, you know that? ❜

❛ what are you so afraid of? ❜

❛ today isn’t your day, is it? ❜

❛ how does it feel to be in love? ❜

❛ you’ve been crying, what’s wrong? ❜

❛ do you remember when we first met? ❜

❛ isn’t this amazing? ❜

❛ did you miss me? ❜

❛ alright, who am i beating up? ❜

❛ that was a close call, wasn’t it? ❜

❛ am i worth so little to you? ❜

❛ how is it you’re never scared? ❜

❛ do you ever think about the future? ❜

❛ can you look at me? please? ❜

❛ you got me flowers? ❜

❛ well, how do i look? ❜

❛ what aren’t you telling me? ❜

❛ how about a kiss before i go? ❜

❛ you don’t know who i am, do you? ❜

❛ may i have this dance? ❜

❛ who’s going to stop us, huh? ❜

❛ wait, you’re leaving already? ❜

❛ it’s my fault, isn’t it? ❜

❛ have you ever lost someone? ❜

❛ do you think i’m a good person? ❜

❛ what are you thinking about? ❜

❛ is it really you? ❜

❛ what if i hurt you? ❜

❛ if you won’t take care of yourself, then who will? ❜

❛ have you come to laugh at me? ❜

❛ will you still look at me like you do now? ❜

[vaulttecexec]

i'm looking at my inbox to do it, and i must say i am very proud of cooper for recognizing that sleeping with his ex-wife was a bad idea. both of them that did it. back to back. i'm honestly so proud of both of you. it was an awful idea. it was fun tho, right?

[vaulttecexec]

the plan is: to finish my asks here, on lucy, and on maddie get to whatever i've plotted in the last month and address the plotting call i told people i'd do in 24 hrs. ask me if i'm gonna stay on task over the weekend?

[vaulttecexec]

the barb side continuation to this theory and how it changes the relationship dynamic for the howard family:

disclaimer: these are all thoughts i've been thinking and in no way have any truth other than me thinking it is. under a cut, again, because while this is an addition to the main theory, i'm still long winded and do not want to clog your dash with my peabrain think train.

I ENCOURAGE READING THE OTHER PART OF THIS FIRST FOR ANY OF THIS TO MAKE SENSE.

so, now that i've dragged you all down my rabbit hole, we have to discuss how much barb potentially did or didn't know, and how all of this ties into the theory of him looking for her too.

this is not going to be an argument of if they truly divorced or not. that isn't the point.

personally, i don't think barb knew any more than the next guy until it was too late to do anything about it, like it was hinted at between moldaver and the pip boy scene. there is very little that came down to her idea, and she seems to be appeasing the suits more than anything. that doesn't mean she didn't know something was fundamentally wrong with what they were doing. it's quite likely that when she found out, there was very little she could do about it or was faced with a bigger issue at hand that needed dealing with. nothing about her character says she would have struggled with indecision. she simply made the choices that were best for their family when they came up.

could bakersfield, vault 12, and the necropolis be why she didn't think bakersfield was a good idea? sure. this one is one of the very few times barb played the villain. she knew something bad was going to happen there, because she knew there were good vaults and bad ones, but the extent of her knowledge still isn't common knowledge. she also broke it to cooper in a way that cooper could digest and would keep him from being angry at anyone but her. that shows her self inflicted guilt, too. she wants him to be mad at her. how she said it says she wants someone to react to what she's saying and ask questions and help her sort it out and potentially get out. it just didn't happen like that.

she never seems to make any important business decision or show any other outward sign of guilt and blame drawing in the show until she says the line (and that shouldn't even count, because she's looking to someone else for approval when she says it). This story isn't told from Barb's point of view, it's told from Cooper's so the skew would come from him seeing her differently. When they argued, you can clearly see he still has this belief she's a good person and would remain so to him.

I don't think knowing made her a bad person or a bad wife or mother. I think we can't keep group dumping that logic of vault tec bad so everyone else involved is too. there were some genuine good people, who thought they were doing the right thing, and they got caught up with the wrong company.

how did it affect the howard's?

first it's shown in her inability to touch him or allow him to touch her in the way she did at the start of the show. by the end of it, she seems almost hesitant to let him even hug her. and she is definitely in another place mentally through it. that is the first indication that she isn't cold and malicious. she's genuinely struggling with what's going on here.

it's also shown in how she immediately sets her shoulders like she's going to war with cooper. you can see her physically prepare before she speaks to him from the hottub scene on. it was subtle, but it was there.

so, if cooper was an experiment, what does that have to do with barb?

VAULT TEC HAS DEFINITELY DONE SOMETHING FOR HIM TO SEPARATE WHAT HE THINKS OF THE COMPANY AND WHAT HE THINKS OF HER.

first of all, if she knew about bakersfield, she was definitely trying to keep them from becoming ghouls. she'd have to know that was a potential for any of them. but, it would have been more than that.

cooper, at some point, would have had to come to terms with the fact that she was still making a good decision by not wanting that fate for them. he also would've had to reconcile his feelings with what she'd said and what he knew of her and about her to get to the point of considering her his family WITH janey.

he would've been receiving first hand exposure to exactly what she was trying to keep them from, and that likely had something to do with the reconciliation he'd done in regards to her. he's also spent a lot of years wandering the wasteland, so if his plan was to just die in the drop, he'd know that was NOT guaranteed either. he'd know that while a little twisted, she really was making the best choice for her moral code in that moment. he'd see people ghoulify naturally. he'd probably find out about cryopreservation and the amount of people saved from it. he'd learn everything they never talked about in all that time.

AND CONSIDER, all that time he spent with his memories if he was a science project.

i think his development to include barb in his hunt was one that was probably harder for him to deal with than the knowledge at least his daughter was safe.

again, this is not a review of their relationship. what that looks like seems way messier than how he got to the point to look for his family and not just his daughter post experimentation.

plus, we do get an idea of how long he'd been topside. it wasn't mentioned that cooper worked with that man's grandfather, he worked with his dad. that was said for a reason. it changes the topside timeline, but it would fit into the grand picture of cooper not being naturally occurring.

also, his clothing hasn't fully disintegrated from exposure? that means something, too.

i got sidetracked, but these are all things that affect the howards and how they came to the point they were by the end of the season

GDI ROCKI, TL;DR. PLEASE:

If Barb knew about good and bad vaults, she likely had an idea of what was going to happen in Bakersfield. I don't think she had the clearance to stop anything, but she could navigate a better future for them by keeping her head down. This would have to all be things Cooper learned after the fact, which likely helped him reconcile some with her. He'd done so enough to consider not just Janey his family, but her as well by the end of it. We also get the idea that he hasn't been gunslinging as far back as the drop happened based on easily overlooked dialogue. There's clues he wasn't.

[vaulttecexec]

men and dramatics. was she not safe from it even after the world ended? "i'm not going to let you die. no die. live. dramatic." she replied, finishing her handiwork and letting him relax back against his stone.

she still didn't trust he'd make it through the night, though. regardless, she was committed to staying, setting her things down and dropping to sit to his left. "rest. i'll keep you safe."

it's the least she could do, given the fact she'd decided he wasn't dying today. she really did have a nasty streak of playing creator, didn't she? it didn't really matter, in the grand scheme, though. they were all still so fragile and breakable.

he'd feel better in the morning if she kept to her schedule, and she intended to. she didn't need sleep and trusted sleeping in the open even less. no, she stayed close by and tended to him as best she could in the moment.

water, bandage, stimpak, repeat.

"stay talking. what's your name?" she asks. rest and sleep were two very different things. he'd just have to stick with their language gap for a little longer. if he's talking he wasn't dead.

Surprise flickers across his tired expression when the woman shows her palms as she kneels before him. Why she didn't just end him or walk on by, he couldn't fathom. He wondered if the Great Stallion had sent her. She spoke then, and he listened closely, doing his best to decipher her strange tongue with the added difficulty of his feverish haze. He knew some English but he was far from fluent in it. Help... His eyes trailed to her pack as she dropped it, then back up to her, and he gave a weak nod of consent. A great, pained, groan issued from his throat as she poured some liquid on his chest. He tried to curl away from the sensation, but didn't get far. Before he can do much else, the strange woman stabs him with some sort of device and his breath catches in his throat, eyes widening. Coolness spreads out from where she pricked him and, inexplicably, his thoughts flow a little clearer. The edge is dulled off of his pain. His eyes focus on her again, listening, and he nods his understanding. He digs deep inside for the last reserves of his strength and groans again as he moves for the first time since coming to rest against the rock. As she begins to bandage him, he says something in a deep, rough, language. Then he pauses, doubting she understands. In thickly accented English, he manages, "Burn me. I die... burn me." If he died, he wanted to rise to the heavens to ride with the Great Stallion and those who had come before.

[vaulttecexec]

someone asked on discord, so i’ll clarify here. i am not chronically online. half the time i’m working, or i’m working a more personal job, or i’m up at night working another thing. i really don’t see much unless you @ me and send it across my phone or discord catches up and sends me all my notifications at once.

i DO sleep, i promise, albeit irregularly most days. i promise i’m FINE. thank you for the concern though 😌.